[ale] Republicans’ “Internet Freedom Act” would wipe out net neutrality | Ars Technica

Robert Reese ale at sixit.com
Sun Mar 8 21:09:40 EDT 2015


Saturday, March 7, 2015, 12:47:08 PM, Brian wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Jay Lozier <jslozier at gmail.com>wrote:

> To me, the better solution is not allow the there to be local
>  monopolies. In many communities, the monopoly exists because local
>  governments granted an exclusive franshise to a cable provider. A
>  single, local provider in theory means better local control but CobbEMC
>  management had been defrauding the members for years. As someone who
>  lives in their service area I would love the chance to use someone else.

> With services like this, you need to have local monopolies on some level, otherwise you'd have a different set of wires running everywhere
> for each service provider, and the streets would be constantly under construction as other providers were installing new lines, etc..., which
> has other negative impacts.  This is the reason that exclusive franchises are granted in the first place (often with large tax breaks).

Not at all. When the phone system was opened up, MCI didn't run a new line to my house, nor did Verizon when I switched to them.  It all came over the same phone lines.

Of course, new lines would actually be a good thing: the coax system is overburdened and the wires need replacing anyway. Plus, that gives the fiber folks an opportunity to drop in their lines, too.  Nope, construction might be annoying, but it is a good thing in the long run.



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